Color positive photographic prints intended for direct viewing are typically made by imagewise exposing a support coated with layers sensitive to each of the blue, green, and red regions of the visible spectrum which yield yellow, magenta and cyan dye images, respectively. Exposure is commonly to a color negative film which contains a negative image of the original scene. If the exposure latitufe of the color print material is less than the full range of densities recorded in the film, reproduction of detail in the print will be poor.
Exposure latitude is a measure of the ability of a recording material to represent differences in intensity of exposure by differences in density. Thus, materials with a wide exposure latitude would respond to a wide range of exposure intensities by showing differences in image density, while materials with a narrow exposure latitude would for the same range of exposure intensities show fewer differences in density. Heretofore exposure latitude typically has been modified by manipulation of the silver halide emulsion. For example, increasing the range of grain sizes in an emulsion is known to extend the exposure latitude while narrowing the range of grain sizes is known to decrease exposure latitude. U.S. Pat. No. 3,663,228, issued May 16, 1972, to C. W. Wyckoff, discloses still other techniques for extending the exposure latitude in color photographic recording materials.